Verboten
Chapter 36

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Disclaimer: I don't own the Winx Club.

Fore Note: Did the last chapter feel like an ending? It wasn't.

Just info for those who have not seen episode one of season four: there is indeed a Hall of Magic in Alfea. In one of the mirrors in Faragonda's office, one of them leads into an underground library that the Winx Club have access to. It's originally called the Hall of Enchantments in the RAI English, which just sounds way too pompous. I mean really? For something that apparently contains the history of the magical universe and a corridor devoted to all past and present villains, could they have come up with something a little cooler? Hall of Magic is sticking!

For those who want to complain still that in the actual Italian that it's called 'something d'incantate' or whatever, I know that it more or less points to Hall of Enchantments in the literal sense but the meaning behind those individual words varies between languages. 'Enchant' means to make someone happy primarily while it can also mean to put under a spell in English. Unfortunately, the former definition sticks in my mind heavily when I think of the word (in English) as well as the fact that I associate it with incubi, vampires, demons of temptation, etc when it comes to magic. If you said it to me in French, I would interpret it as 'magical or bespelled' in the broad sense which was what was possibly intended.

Roxy woke up with an all-consuming migraine. It was as if a thousand needles were being inserted into her brain. Her head throbbed. She turned over in her bed, reeling in pain. Beside her, her kitten (which she had yet to name) and Artu watched in confusion at her pain. Artu poked his nose into her arm and whined.

In an instant, the pain was gone. She found herself in her own bed, in her own house and for a fleeting moment, she thought that the entire ordeal involving the Winx Club and the specialists was just a dream. The kitten sashayed around her arm, meowing and Roxy realized that it had not been a dream at all. She had found the kitten while running away from the wizards. She would have never found the kitten if she had never run, therefore if she had never run, she would have never been chased by the wizards and so on.

The pain in her head was still present but nothing a couple of pain relievers could not handle. The pink-haired girl made her way downstairs, noticing that it was late to get up. She ate a small and quick breakfast. She stared at the plate for a very long time, trying to readjust herself to a sense of normalcy.

Family. Dad had one arm in a sling and was already at the bar, working somehow. That was a disconcerting thought.

Job. She had a shift at the bar starting at one.

Magic. The Winx Club was gone, but their boyfriends were still on Earth to watch over her. That was also disconcerting.

Her destiny? She had no idea. There were a million other things going on in her world that she did not even mention to the Winx Club.

After cleaning the dishes, getting dressed and leaving the house with Artu, she decided that she would try to live the next couple days like they were normal and then tackle the millions of issues awaiting her, one at a time. Just at the corner down the street, it seemed fate had other plans and she wanted Roxy to face her issues now.

A teenage girl with long black hair wearing a t-shirt and demin shorts appeared. "Hi, is it too early to bother you yet?" Asta said cautiously, walking beside her.

"About what?"

"Y'know…the last week?"

"Oh." Roxy and Asta continued on their way to the bar.

"Look, I can tell that you're shaken by what just happened."

As if she understood what had happened! Inside, the Earth fairy was seething with confusion. "Shaken? I'm upset, Asta! I have no idea what the hell is going on!" Roxy shouted.

"Well, let's start from the beginning. It'll be good for you to get it out. Start with the White Circle after Bloom gave it to you," Asta coaxed.

"The thing started talking to me. It called itself Nebula and it—" Roxy tried to use hand gestures to explain.

"Exploded with energy? Tried to take you over?"

"Yes, that. There was so much screaming. I heard so many things like sadness, anger, loneliness. I was Nebula and I couldn't fight it. Do you understand what I mean?"

"Yes," Asta paused. Roxy felt a weighty 'no' on its way. "But no."

"How come?"

"I'm a witch, you're a fairy. I could have been the fairy and you the witch. It's a matter of predestination. Fairies are most of the time chosen by fate but the matter is weighted heavily by your personality and will."

"Are you saying that I was chosen before I was born?"

"Yes. Look, no one said that being a fairy was going to be easy but whatever affinity chose to use you as its reincarnation thought you were strong enough to change this world profoundly. You are special not only because you were chosen to be a fairy but because you are a wonderful and kind-hearted person. You have the gift of extreme kindness to every living creature around you. You treat Artu and your cat better than you treat people."

Roxy looked down to Artu. He looked back up, wagging his tail. "And if I don't want to be special? I'm not like you guys, I don't belong. My life is here on Earth with my father and Artu."

"One thing does not exclude the other. Who told you that you belong only on Earth? The universe is much bigger than this planet. You belong wherever you want to belong. If you want it to be on Earth, so be it. Just remember, your destiny is not made for you. It's you who makes your destiny. You can learn to use your magic and be a fairy without giving up the normal things."

"This is way too deep. I didn't want any of this."

"Roxy, I understand how you feel. I am acutely and painfully aware of everyone's feelings twenty-four/seven because it's part of my magic. Just take the time to think about it. And if you need help, you have all of us. The Winx Club is just one phone call away, if you want."

Roxy nodded, feeling slightly better about the support. She wanted to talk about something else, other than herself and so she turned the conversation to Asta's powers. "What are your powers?"

"My specialty is powers involving the mental faculties. That's the technical term for it in school. Without the fancy verbatim, it's telepathy. I can read and communicate with other minds, alter them, separate them, control them and whatever but don't confuse it with what Chandra has. Chandra can only read minds. It makes her a clairvoyant, like a lie-detector. She can only read thoughts that are on the surface of the mind. She can't explore people's memories like I did or anything else."

"And?"

"And what? I just told you my life's story right there."

"Well, what does it look like your magic?"

"What do to you mean?"

"Bloom's magic looks like fire and Flora's is flowers. What about yours?"

"Unlike fairies, witches can choose how they want their magic to look like and where to draw the energy for it. Not everyone uses their magic to fight, contrary to what you've seen. Fighting with magic is harder than you think which is why the Winx have very little real contact with the wizards in battle. Magic takes a toll on the body. You need to have enough endurance use magic as well as hold your own in physical combat, which is extremely hard. It's a delicate balance."

"Meaning?"

"You're just going to see a bunch of psychedelic lights from me. Maybe some crystals every now and then when I want to physically throw something at you."

"What else can you do?" Roxy pried.

Asta felt like this conversation was a little more personal than expected but she suspected that this was to give Roxy a sense of normalcy or relief, some way of calming her down and saying that magic is normal.

"I do lab technician stuff as a job on Eraklyon but I work as a spy on Earth. Y'know, geeky CSI stuff. Sometimes, I'm called in as an interrogation specialist. I did mostly rhythmic gymnastics in school, did some dance, I can sew, got a civil pilot's license…um and did some martial arts."

"That…that's a lot more than I ever did, you know that, right? I'm just really good at cooking and baking but that's it."

"That means you know how to feed yourself," Asta assured her. "Cooking is more important than being able to fly an aircraft. Food is an essential that is taken for granted. Don't think you're not good at anything. You're also extremely good with animals. When I went to Magix, I felt kind of like the overachiever in the class but I failed at some normal things. I can cook for my survival but I can't cook for taste. Sky and all the other guys did it anyways so I'm not alone when I think about it."

"Are all the people in the universe like you and them?"

"What do you mean?"

"Are they considered normal? Like does everyone have magic?" Roxy searched her mind for the right words. The Earth fairy turned to Asta, unable to communicate her thoughts.

Asta's eyes glowed stormy grey with magic, reading her mind. "I understand what you're trying to get at. No, not everyone practises magic to the degree that you've seen. There are people who see magic but can't practise it at all. They are just like the people on Earth. If the city is suddenly attacked by, let's say a giant monster, not every citizen is trained for battle or brave enough for it. Most of them will just run while they let the professionals take care of it."

Roxy watched the glow in Asta's eyes disappear back to black brown. "And what happened to your eyes just now?"

"It's what happens when I use magic. Some people have a glow around their body; my eyes glow because that is how I focus my powers. I could use contacts to cover them but it would just be annoying taking them off and putting them on. Tell me, did the Winx Club teach you any magic?"

"No, not really."

"How would you feel if I taught you magic?" the witch offered. Roxy and Asta came to a stop in front of the entrance to the Frutti Music Bar. They faced each other.

"What? Would that be right? You're a witch—"

Asta looked into the fairy's eyes intently. "And you're a fairy. Magic is magic. There is no difference except for the intention that you attach to your magic. I'm not a witch from Cloud Tower. I did not go to school in Magix to learn more magic. I went to learn sciences. That is the prejudice that Winx Club has implanted in you because of their experiences. I am not a Trix, I am not a Cloud Tower witch, I am not inherently evil. I am just a witch. If I happen to be evil, it is because I choose to be evil."

"I-I…" Roxy said mortified. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it to be like that."

"So would you like it if I taught you magic?"

"Yes."

-

Bloom woke up all of a sudden, sweating and breathing heavily. Magix's two suns shone brightly in her new empty bland room. She looked about confused. This was her new room in the faculty wing of Alfea, the same room that she had gotten when she started her internship at Alfea before she had rushed off to Earth.

Belle, her fairy pet green sheep, fluttered around her head. Kiko hopped on to her lap, concerned. Bloom assured them with a pet on their head. Her room was square with bare walls and the essential furniture. She had her own private bathroom and a balcony. Her stuff was still packed in her bags. She threw the sheets off, jumped out of bed and used a spell to unpack everything. She felt oddly alone since Flora was not with her. All the girls had their own separate rooms. They had become interns at Alfea after the rebirth of Sparks and they were supposed to act as role models for the newer fairies.

Clothes flew into the closet, bathroom stuff into the bathroom, books and papers onto the desk and bookshelves, her bed arranged itself with her comforter from home and all the other necessities.

Still, she felt unhappy over the mess she had left on Earth. After taking a hot shower and dressing, she noticed her purse was still on the side table that she had dropped it on. It was still full of the little knickknacks that she could not decide where to put them. She fumbled through it for her lip balm and saw the letter that Sky had snuck in when he finally hugged her before leaving. She remembered the name he had whispered into her ear:

"Faragonda."

Bits of the strange conversation floated in her head. "Then there is blind faith and unerring loyalty, the kind that you never ask questions." Trust, her ass. Something picked at her mind though. What was so important about this letter that he had to pull that move on her? That kind of trust was reserved for a king and his servant, not a man and his woman. On second thought, there were some relationships that were just like that. What had he been talking about?

He'd better have a good explanation when she came back. There was a knock on her door that broke her out of her stupor.

The fire fairy hid the letter in her back pocket and answered the door. "Madame DuFour, good morning," Bloom said cheerily to her former teacher.

Carlotta DuFour was a springy woman with long blond white hair and always wore something fabulous. At the moment, she wore a red knee-length dress under a brown jacket. She was Stella's favourite teacher because she knew who Isaac Wizrahi and Spella McCartney were—that is, she was fashion savvy. DuFour created a lot of envy and talk among her students for her looks, power and teaching methods as she was also one of the toughest teachers in the school. Under the guise of a high-born noble woman was a drill sergeant. Along with being the primary teacher for etiquette and ethics, she was a master spellcaster who taught the Honours Magic, a class that was just as selective as Professor Avalon's Magic Philosophy.

"I don't know if you're aware of this since you left for your mission on Earth before even completing an entire day of teaching at Alfea, Bloom, but I am the woman in charge of all the interns. Right now, the arcana regarding your roles and positions in this school are in dispute for reasons undisclosed to me. I suspect that you do know. I don't need to introduce myself but at eleven o'clock, I want you in my office along with the rest of your friends for orientation. No buts, no exceptions, no excuses," DuFour said sweetly, with an underlying tone of severity. The beautiful woman turned on her expensive three inch heels and strode down the hall, her silver hair floating after her gracefully.

"By the way, Headmistress Faragonda wants all of you in her office in an hour," the woman tossed over her shoulder nonchalantly.

"Th-thanks!"

First thing in the morning and Bloom was already intimidated by the woman. Bloom ran a hand through her hair and checked that the letter was still in her pocket. She inspected it. She could feel the outline of the folded sheets and by looking at it in the light—wait, she wasn't supposed to do that!

"Ugh, I can't carry this in my pocket. It'll stick out like a sore thumb." She looked back to her purse. She was hungry and wanted to catch a quick bite. She grabbed her purse and shoved the letter in. She left the room quickly for the kitchen.

She grabbed a croissant from the kitchen and masticated it into nothingness by the time she got to Faragonda's office. She knocked and was let in. Faragonda was not at her desk but Bloom did see that the mirror to the Hall of Magic was opened. She stepped into the mirror frame and down the stairs to the dimly lit hidden library.

The room was bathed in golden light. It was a museum of artifacts that led to many obscure hallways underneath the school and sometimes held in pocket dimensions. She remembered the one hallway she had wondered into and encountered portraits of past enemies of the realm. She finally understood why Faragonda did not want her to see the portrait of the Black Circle. The history was too horrible and devastating for her mind. The horror that the wizards had unleashed, the vile plague that had destroyed Europe.

"Ms. F!" Bloom called out. She was not wont to lose herself in those hallways again.

Bloom turned down to what looked like a study area.

"Here, Bloom," the headmistress called back.

Bloom found the elderly woman sitting at a desk, hunched over a heavy book. In the corner was a forgotten cup of cold coffee, a half eaten plate of breakfast and an apple. Under her right hand, was the White Circle. On her left was a dark glowing sphere the size of a fist, something like a jewel. It was that same thing that had fallen out of her hand when Roxy exploded in the warehouse after the fight with the wizards, when she had been possessed by Nebula and she had filtered those strange memories.

The woman looked taxed. She examined the White Circle in her hands, trying to figure it out. She put it back down and looked to her ex-student.

"You're early," the old woman noted. "Did you eat yet? Is something the matter?"

"No. Ms. F, I have something for you from Sky." Bloom fumbled for the letter and handed it to the senior woman.

"What is this?" Faragonda glanced at the envelope, noting the lack of any form of addressing.

"I don't know but Sky was very strict about making sure no one knew that it existed." Bloom pulled a chair towards her and sat. "I don't know, miss, but he even went on about this weird thing about trust and loyalty."

"Let's see what he has to say." Faragonda conjured an envelope knife and cut it open. She read the letter slowly. After a few long minutes, she looked back to Bloom with arched eyebrows. "Bloom, do you know what is in this letter?"

"No." Bloom shook her head. "Is it about me?"

"No, but this is a very powerful letter. This goes beyond my own—well, you shouldn't know but this is very powerful." Faragonda sighed, surprised and unsure. She took a deep breathe and recomposed herself. "On another note, I'm glad that you came early. Sky's report says that they had to go through Roxy's mind before she committed amnesia. Do you think you can tell me what happened from your point of view? I know that it starts with you giving her the ring by accident."

Bloom placed her arms on the table before and stooped, placing her hands behind her like she was hiding her head. "Well, I gave it to her. I don't know what happened but the ring possessed her. It called itself Nebula and she found the wizards somehow and fought them. Like, she really wanted to kill them."

Bloom tried to explain the entire events as concisely as possible but she could not help but cry a little. She pulled out some tissue from purse, happy that she had brought it.

"I ran away with Andy and told him everything. I was so scared. Erendor was there and Sky was so mad. I never heard him talk like that before. I thought he was really going to hurt someone. When they caught us, I hurt some people so badly that I killed them. I killed Helia, miss! I mean, there was another girl but I didn't mean it! I tried to heal them but it was so hard. Even the Dragon was against them. I know that I shouldn't do that but I didn't mean to kill them! People shouldn't die for my mistakes, especially since I'm the Keeper of the Fire. And then there was Roxy and I felt so bad about that. It was all my fault and I couldn't do that to her or her dad.

"So, there was this witch Asta. She was the only one who could help. It was something stupid about being the only one with the right skills to do it. I said that I wanted to come too. She didn't want it but Sky forced her. She said she would only do it if Sky came and so all three of us went. It started normal with the bar but everything started changing to medieval Europe and a lot of weird things started happening. We found out how the Black Circle did it all. They really killed everyone with magic and-and…"

A steady pile of tissues was growing beside Bloom. Faragonda had conjured a box for her after running out from her purse.

"I used to think that it wasn't so bad. It happened such a long time ago that it didn't matter. There wasn't advanced medicine but I never realized that people could do that. I didn't know that people could make diseases that only targeted magical people. There were so many emotions. It hurt so much! There was so much death! The wizards had used fake names and put themselves in the best places in society to get rid of the magic. Some of them worked for the Church and the Church hated all the pagans so they usually killed them back then or converted them but…I just didn't think that it was that big. I didn't realise that it was like that. I just didn't—"

"It's okay, Bloom." Faragonda laid a comforting hand on Bloom's shoulder. "You can stop."

"O-okay." Bloom sniffed and blew into a tissue. She looked at Faragonda's heavy books, wanting to take mind off of the horrible memories. "What are you studying?" she stuttered.

"Bloom, did you know this is somebody's charmix?" Faragonda held the White Circle up gravely. "It has the magical essence of a charmix."

"Is it?" Bloom remembered the halo that Meadhbh had summoned and trapped everyone inside to fly to Sicily. Was it that? Yes, it had to be. "Then that means that belonged to the last fairy queen from Ireland. Oh, um, her name was Meadhbh. Her husband was Bladen and her kids were Steorra and…and, oh, Nebula. Oh God. Does that mean that Nebula is still alive somehow?"

"It might," Faragonda smiled hopefully.

"I thought charmixes were broaches and bags? And Meadhbh's dead so how does that work?" Nebula's memories had made that painfully clear that Meadhbh had died.

"Dear, a transformation is whatever the fairy wants it to be. Your clothes can be whatever you want them to be but your wings will always be the same. As to how a dead fairy's charmix still exists, I have no idea. It's perplexing me. This is one of those situations that has never come up before and I'm afraid I'm at a lost at where to start."

"And what about that?" Bloom pointed to the dark glowing sphere on Faragonda's left. "What is it?"

"It contains dark magic. This is more for Griffin and her staff. It dabbles in fields that I'm not sufficiently trained to handle. Contain it maybe but not outright control it. I heard that the Black Circle possibly have immortality. From what Sky understood, they were looking for fountains of youth on Earth for that."

"Immortality is forbidden, right?"

"Exactly. No one has the right to live forever."

"But how come? I don't get it."

"Everything happens in a cycle, Bloom. The universe is constantly changing, constantly moving but not forward or backward. Forward doesn't necessarily mean good and backward bad. They're just directions. It is the theory of stasis and change. Think of it as birth and death. Death follows birth, birth follows death. Take this apple for example," Faragonda said. She took sip of her cold coffee and the apple from her plate. She cleared the book and the artifacts to the side and placed the apple in front of them.

"This apple came a long way to get to my plate. If I threw this apple outside, what would happen? Don't imagine as if I ate it and I threw the core. Imagine that I threw out a perfectly good and whole apple like this one into the forest. What would happen? It would rot, right?"

"Right."

"It would rot and shrivel and no animal would want to eat it because it's full of mould and it's tasteless, right?"

"Right."

"Wrong, Bloom."

"What?"

"This is ecology, the basis for the cycle of life. Everything in nature is eaten and used. This is the law of the conservation of energy in its most basic form."

The conservation of energy law consisted of: 1) nothing is created, 2) nothing is lost and 3) everything is transformed. It was one of the basic theories that the imposter Professor Avalon had mentioned in passing in his Magic Philosophy classes in her second year.

"The mould that would form on this apple would eat it as well as the insects like the worms and parasites. Mould is a life form. Those are the small creatures that we take for granted. They would eat this apple until there was nothing left of it. No core, no skin and maybe not even the seeds. The mass of this apple would be in their stomachs. They ate this apple so that it could give them energy to survive. Once the apple goes through the stomach, you know that what is left is not an apple at all, right?" Faragonda arched one brow and smirked.

"Um, you mean…?"

"Fecal matter. Let's call it 'waste,' alright? Now, you know that some little worm left waste behind. What composes of that waste? The dead cells from the body, the indigestible parts maybe? It's in the soil, in the dirt of some garbage dump or maybe our garden in the back. Who would want to possibly eat the waste of a worm?"

"Aren't there plants that would eat it?"

"Yes, but why, Bloom?"

"I don't know."

"Plants can't always differentiate between what is waste and what is soil. What we might see as waste is food for something else. We decide think that waste is undesirable as a food because it simply looks disgusting, its constituency makes us sick and just smells horrible. We wouldn't eat it obviously. You would have to be insane to even think about it." Faragonda smiled.

"What consists of waste, Bloom? On an elemental level? Carbon, iron, sodium, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen? Plants feed off of that to grow. They don't see the meaning of waste as we do. The waste decomposes and makes the soil rich with nutrients and the plants eat those nutrients through their roots. What used to be an apple gets metabolized by a tree or some plant, maybe an apple tree and in the end, that tree produces fruit. More apples. What was once an apple becomes an apple again and makes its way to my plate."

"What does this have to do with immortality though?"

"Everything happens in a cycle. Life and death; evil and good; light and darkness; yin and yang; femininity and masculinity. They are polar opposites but they are the constituents of harmony. You can't live with one without the other. They are what make this universe move. By move, I mean change.

"Think about where immortality fits into the cycle of life and death, Bloom. Where does immortality fit?"

"I don't know," Bloom said simply. The subject at hand was rather heavy for something so early in the morning.

"Think, Bloom," Faragonda urged. The woman pulled out a scrap piece of paper and pen. She wrote LIFE and DEATH on opposite ends of the paper and two arrows: one pointing from LIFE to DEATH and one pointing from DEATH to LIFE. She also drew a large circle that encompassed the entire cycle. In the very center of the page, she wrote MORTALITY. "Imagine that what is inside this circle is our universe, the universe that we know. It's closed and no one can get in or get out of the cycle of life. The cycle of life is called mortality. Where does immortality fit in this circle, Bloom? The Black Circle used to be mortal until they found a way to be immortal, Bloom."

Bloom examined the diagram, feeling on the verge of an epiphany. "Are they outside the circle?"

"Yes, it's exactly that," Faragonda said. Her voice rose in volume. "No one is allowed outside of this circle. Immortality is considered stasis."

Bloom was silenced by the tone of the headmistress's voice. The seriousness and totality of her statement scared her.

"Mortal beings have immortal souls. The soul is the spark of life, the retainer of knowledge. It is what gives us a conscience and the ability to choose. It makes us different from one another. We feel emotions like love, desire, hate, sadness. The soul is also the seat of our magic. If you're a fairy, your affinity handpicks your soul and attaches itself to you. You fuse together to become a fairy. At some point in life when you have done their will or you've died, the affinity detaches itself from you and let's you go on. When we die, we go back to the universe until we attach ourselves to another mortal body and live again."

"I didn't know that."

"It's not in the curriculum for a reason, Bloom. This knowledge is powerful and not all fairies are like you. Some fairies are born for the necessity of evil. You are the exception to the rule of good and evil because you are the vessel of the Dragon. The Dragon is not always good, nor always evil. The Dragon is the watcher of the scales and chooses the side to keep that scale balanced.

"Immortal beings don't have souls. They live forever in one constant continuous life. They don't see the beginning or the end. Life is one giant journey for them. They have no need for a soul since they are never reincarnated. I've met very few immortals, most of them having lost their sanity. They have very little emotion even though they try to emulate us mortals to keep their sanity. Sometimes, it doesn't work and they lose their sense of self. Losing track of time onsets the insanity. Most immortals are agents of the Dragon, that is to say the daemons. Not all daemons are immortals. They are by lore and legend, the first children of the Great Dragon and the first people of this universe.

"I've been told that there is a powerful cauldron on Neicheusia that takes away their memories. This was their saving grace from their Father, the Dragon. The Dragon was merciful enough to put them out of their suffering by taking away their memory and therefore avoiding insanity. By drinking from the cauldron, it wiped their memory clean, even their names. To them, amnesia is their form of life and death."

"That's so sad," Bloom said. She had never met them or even heard of them until a day ago but it seemed that their way of living was so horrible. She could not imagine always suffering oneself to amnesia just to prevent insanity. Was that what Roxy had been subconsciously thinking? Amnesia just to make the pain go away. She never thought that living was so difficult until now. She liked to see things on bright-side, where everything was peachy-keen and full of joy. She supposed that her way of dealing with things was just to put the problem in the back of her mind until she could handle it.

Or just ran away from it if she could not handle it at all, she thought in retrospect.

"The immortal soul and the immortal body are incompatible, Bloom," Faragonda continued. "You're a living example of it. You have the powers of the Dragon—that is, the Dragon and your immortal soul—but the body of a mortal. When you die, all of your powers will be given to your firstborn child and your soul will attach itself to another body."

"Why can't you have both?"

"Because then you are a god and that is unacceptable, Bloom."

Latter Note: Isn't that a terrifying idea? I've noticed that there's a lot more ideological discussion going on lately than actual action. That will change in a couple of chapters. I want to set up some ground rules before I go in dumping the Trix and the Black Circle on them. (Yeah, that immortality thing has been going on since...I don't know, chapter 3. Or June 2009? Really, go ahead and read it. What is this unhealthy fixation on immortality? I would argue that isn't that the absolute basis of eternal power? As long as you have it, you're set to conquer the universe. Erm, and that has been going on since the birth of Bloom maybe when the three ancestresses tried to destroy Sparks?)

If Roxy and Asta's conversation feels eerily familiar, it's because it's the same conversation that Roxy has with Bloom and Flora at the beginning of episode 10, Musa's Song.

If anyone wants to correct me on the law of the conservation of energy, please do. (That's something you don't see in a Winx Club fic...)